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Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Delia Latham: Time Benders

One of the most common complaints
from writers is the difficulty in finding time
to write. Most of us could use a few extra hours in our day. Most weeks are
gone almost before we realize they’ve started. And it’s not that hard to
understand. Think about it:

In the 24 hours we’re allotted per
day, most of us spend 8 sleeping and 8 working. That leaves only 8 hours for
other pursuits. Factor in at least a couple of hours eating (no “vehicle” goes
far without fuel), and there are 6 hours left. Most of us use most of that time
cooking, cleaning, gardening…and a thousand other things that absolutely must
be done. Clearly, “free time” is a rare gift.

What’s a writer to do, then? Just
forget it and give up? Some do. You know who they are…they’re the ones who
never get a book published. If you want to be a real writer, however, the answer is a resounding, “NO!” Never,
never, never give up.

You’re creative. Of course you
are, or you wouldn’t want to write. So create time.

OK…I get it. Only God could add more
hours to a day, and He’s not likely to do that. Which means the only way to
“create time” is to be innovative with our use of it. Bend time, if you will.
Multi-task. Make use of every…single…moment.

Here are a few “for instances.”

·
Stopped
in traffic or waiting in line at the grocery store? Write a scene in your
head. You can jot it all down later.

·
Eating
alone? No need to be lonely. Spend that time with your characters. Work out
the details of your hero’s past, or your heroine’s secret angst, or your
villain’s sad childhood.

·
Making
beds? Washing dishes?Vacuuming? Those
are perfect times to mentally write your next scene, or plan your next chapter.

·
Got a
long drive ahead of you? Wonderful! Use the alone time to come up with
scenes, events, plot twists, etc. Why listen to music or audio books when you
could be “writing”?

·
Sitting
in your doctor’s/dentist’s waiting room?Pull
out your notebook—you know, the one you never go anywhere without—and write. You can feed it all into your
manuscript later, when you find some real
writing time.

Where there’s a
will, there’s a way. Pardon the cliché, but it’s true. We find time for the things that
matter most to us. If writing is a priority, you will find opportunities
to make it happen—or create them.

The bullet points above deal mostly with existing
timeframes that sometimes we simply don’t think to use as writing
opportunities. Sometimes, however, writing requires a sacrifice of other
activities…some of which might be hard to relinquish. Again, this is where it
gets right down to the nitty-gritty and forces a writer to decide how badly she
wants to be an author.

Available: Unclaimed Writing Time!

Any one of us who spotted an ad
with the above words in large, inviting letters would absolutely take a second
look. (Come on, you know you would!) But the sad truth is, we fail to claim
available writing time every day.

Think about the following time
slots that most of us fill with unnecessary things that could easily be writing
time instead:

Television.
Are you willing to sacrifice any of the dozen different shows you watch during
week-day evenings in order to claim writing time? Seriously…is it absolutely
necessary to watch “(fill in whatever show fits for you”) reruns you’ve already
seen who-knows-how-many times already?Harder to accept, but just as true, is that
even new shows—some of which sound amazing and you’re dying to see what they’re
all about—might have to be sacrificed to “create time” for writing. It isn’t always
an easy choice. When push comes to shove, what’s most important to you—entertaining
your readers with amazing stories…or being entertained by visual storylines
someone else made the sacrifice to write?

Shopping.
This is a major culprit for many writers—especially women. What’s meant to be a
couple hours of mall time can turn into an all-day, marathon shopping spree.
Oops…completely forgot about that story you’re working on…and another day is
gone, never to be reclaimed.

While it is admittedly not as
much fun, shopping is no longer a valid reason to abandon your manuscript.
Almost anything can be purchased online, and in a mere fraction of the time it
takes to wander the mall.

Social
networking sites. Speaking of being online…Even that—sometimes especially that—can be a time thief.
Facebook, Twitter, Google…and any number of other sites…can be amazing
marketing tools. And yes, it’s fun to connect with friends and family through
these venues. But be careful! Many, many hours that might have been productive
writing time are whiled away shooting the breeze online. If you use these
sites, manage your time on them with unyielding control. Otherwise, you’ll find
you are being controlled by them. And
your writing time will suddenly be non-existent. Again, it’s a simple matter of
priorities.

Games.
They’re a great way to relax…and a great way to waste a tremendous amount of
time. I discovered a couple of years back that I had lost an unbelievable
number of hours of writing time to a silly little pretend farm on Facebook. Was
it worth it? No. A thousand times no! When I realized how close I had come to
missing a writing deadline because I’d gotten mentally lost in Farm Town, I
shut my virtual farm down in a heartbeat. Why? Because writing holds a far
greater importance to me than planting fake wheat and harvesting pretend
carrots. Any game holds that same danger. Play them if you must, but do so on a
timer and then return to your manuscript. Time’s a-wastin’!

Sleep.
Oh, how I love my sleep time! But the cold, hard fact is this: A writer who seriously
cannot make any of the above time benders work, does have the option of bending this period of time to their
benefit. I know an amazing writer who works all day, spends quality time with
her family in the evenings, and crawls out of bed at about 3:30 every single morning to write. Because writing is important to her,
enough so that she’s willing to get less shut-eye than most of us insist on.
The results are obvious in the proliferation of wonderful, heart-warming novels
she consistently produces.

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